Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 23:01:02 EST
Reply-To: Oxroad@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Jeff Oxroad <Oxroad@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: [vanagon] aero to steel bumpers
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
I have some info that may help, but hopefully someone who has completed the
swap will chime in. If you already know the following info, don't bother
reading it ;)
I'm in the middle of doing the swap from steel to the fiberglass bumpers. It
seems the swap you want to do is fairly straight forward, but I see a few
spots that might cause some small issues.
The rear bumper brackets are different for the fiberglass bumpers and the
steel bumpers. So you'll need the correct rear brackets for the steel bumper.
Possibly you cut off the top bolt mount hole part of the bracket on the rear
bumper bracket from the fiberglass bumper there-by making it work for the steel
bumper. (It looks like the upper bolt mount hole on the fiberglass style bracket
is a piece welded to the regular steel bumper style mounting bracket. But I'm
not sure on this part. Safer to find the correct steel brackets unless you've
nothing to lose by experimenting with the fiberglass style brackets.)
There are two pieces of trim on the fiberglass rear--one on each side of the
license plate--which you will want to remove. The trim is basically just
rubber pieces to fill the void between the body and the fiberglass bumper. When the
trim is removed --it just pops off--you'll have eight holes about 1/4 inch to
plug up in the body, unless they don't bother you being left open.
There are metal brackets on each side of the bus that mount the rear
fiberglass bumper corners. These brackets mount to brackets under the bus. So there
should be no holes visible when you remove these.
the plastic corners for the steel bumpers screw directly into the sheet metal
of the bus as I recall. So this shouldn't be a problem.
As for the front, the steel bumper mounts right to the body-no brackets. The
only catch there is there are risers that sort of amount to brackets welded to
the top of the body's bumper mount plate to support the fiberglass bumper.
These risers will be visible or maybe even in the way when you mount the steel
bumper. These welded risers will have to be cut off I'm guessing and a bit of
body repair will be necessary to clean up where they were cut off.
I guess you'll have to take the fiberglass trim panels off the bottom of the
front doors. These are held on by two bolts accessed from underneath. When
removed you'll see two brackets rivited to the door--two rivets in each bracket.
Removing them will leave four holes in each doo about 1/8 inch each.
Best,
Jeff
83.5 Westy
LA,CA
In a message dated 1/10/2004 5:51:50 PM Pacific Standard Time,
momoney.rj@gte.net writes:
> Hi, I have an 88 with the aero bumpers and I'd like to cnvert to the
> older steel bumpers. One thread says its a straight swap and the
> other says its complicated. Anyone out there done it?
>
